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Who are some 2024 fantasy baseball breakouts that could bust in 2025? Michael Cecchini examines those players for next year's fantasy baseball drafts.
It happens every season: player X breaks out while flashing enticing upside, rides the small sample goodness to a relatively high draft cost the next year, and then busts. We want to avoid repeating those mistakes. There are often warning signs with these players. For example, one perilous archetype is the power/speed guy with dubious contact skills. Zack Gelof was the poster child for this profile last year.
He had one of MLB’s worst contact rates but went 14/14 with an 11% barrel rate over just 69 games. Most importantly, Gelof hit .257 despite the questionable contact skills. Surely he could maintain a decent average while providing 20/20 upside in 2024.
Having targeted him in numerous leagues, the Gelof plan has… not worked out. Yes, he’s once again delivering on the power (17 HR) and speed (23 SB), but his whiff issues got Gelof dropped to the bottom third of the A’s order, tanking the run-producing stats (105 runs plus RBI). Worst of all, his batting average crushed our fantasy teams in that category (.216 in 514 PA). Each of the players highlighted below is enticing on the surface but has flaws that could make them big disappointments, i.e., “next year’s Gelof.” Let’s look closer and see how high (or whether) they should be drafted in 2025.
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Connor Norby (2B/3B), Miami Marlins
Once regarded as a fringe top-100 prospect, Norby’s stock took a hit this year thanks to a big rise in strikeout rate (28%) and swinging strikes (13%) in Triple-A for Baltimore, who traded him to Miami at the trade deadline. Fangraphs’ mid-season update moved him to No. 18 in the Orioles system, calling him a below-average 2B defender with “scary” whiff issues and inadequate power to play corner outfield.
What do scouting reports matter, anyway? The Marlins need bodies and since being called up on July 25, Norby has mashed: .265 BA/.831 OPS with seven HR and nine doubles in just 126 PAs. That’s almost a 40-homer pace!
However, Norby is striking out an absurd, "Gelof-"ian 33% during that time, while also not hitting the ball hard on average (85 EV) or at maximum effort (107.5 max EV). He whiffs with no regard for human life (18% SwStr!), leading to abysmal contact rates: 77% zone (86% league average) and 69% overall (76% league average).
Norby gets to his power by pulling the ball a ton (54%), including on fly balls (33%), and hits it at ideal angles (18° launch, 47% sweet spot)—which leads to a superlative 14% barrel rate.
But Norby is clearly running pure: he somehow has the highest HR/FB% and lowest pop-up rate of his professional career—in the majors? He is doing all his damage on middle-middle and up-in pitches, especially sliders (.850 SLG), while ignoring everything away:
Maybe because he whiffs badly there:
Ok, Norby whiffs a lot in general. But there is a clear hole on pitches away. Next year, Norby won’t surprise anyone, and opponents may just attack him on the outside corners; we could see even higher strikeout rates in 2025.
Like Gelof, Norby is very fast (95th percentile sprint speed), though he doesn’t or at least hasn’t run much in the majors (two steals on four attempts). He did steal 13 bases in 80 triple-A games this year, so he has 15 total across all levels. It’s unclear whether Norby has simply been mashing too many extra-base hits to run if he isn’t comfortable doing so in the majors, or if his new team has put the brakes on (though Miami is 12th in steals as a team).
Verdict: Norby’s big second-half run, surprising batting average, and dubious plate discipline scream “next year’s Gelof.” His playing time is likely locked in, but Norby will have to come at a severe discount for us to take a chance on him, especially in the NFBC where he will only be eligible at third base.
Tyler Fitzgerald (SS/OF), San Francisco Giants
As the premise of this column indicates, we get some wrong, but back in April, I said the Giants should find a way to get the speedy Fitzgerald -- used then as an anonymous, part-time injury replacement -- into their lineup. He shuttled back and forth to Triple-A for a bit longer, then got his shot in July. And he raked: from July 20 to August 5, Fitzgerald hit 10 home runs with a .361 average and 264 wRC+ over just 67 PAs.
Fitzgerald flashed power and speed in the minors (22 HR/32 SB in 2023), but he was not a notable prospect and never hit for that kind of thump. Overall, he’s sporting a .293/.345/.516 slash. But a combination of 30% strikeout rate, .392 BABIP, and middling hard-hit metrics (88 EV) has Statcast telling a different story: .237 xBA and .299 xwOBA (.369 actual).
During those hot two weeks, Fitzgerald was turning on pitches; especially fastballs middle-in or in-and-up. Like Norby, he doesn’t have great exit velocities but he pulls a bunch (50%) and lifts the ball for power (19° launch angle), especially if thrown where he likes it:
But look at those numbers on outside pitches. Pitchers have adjusted to Fitzgerald, throwing down and away, especially sliders and changeups, against which he has really struggled with .173 and .162 xBA, respectively.
Fitzgerald has tried to adjust back: since August 6th, he has been batting .273 while pulling less (44% from 49%) and raising his zone contact rate (84% from 80.5% season). However, he has just two home runs in that time and the strikeouts remain high (30%).
Fitzgerald is even faster than Gelof and Norby, with 99th-percentile sprint speed. Though he hasn’t hit for power since early August, he’s running again with 10 steals during that time.
One other potential hurdle: even if we like Fitzgerald, do the Giants? His plate contributions may be offset by below-average defense at short (-3 DRS, -1 OAA). This is a big-spending team with big annual expectations that’s been stuck in neutral lately. They could add talent and turn him into a super utility player; or they could add a shortstop and move Fitzgerald to second base, which has been a revolving door. We must follow the Giants' offseason news to ensure he’s in their plans for 2025.
Verdict: There’s no doubt Fitzgerald has red flags that could make him next year’s Gelof. However, Fitzy has at least a passable 81% zone contact and 72% overall contact rates in MLB, below average but a good deal better than Gelof and Norby. Perhaps Fitzgerald can maintain closer to the 84% zone contact he’s shown lately. If so, could he bat .250 with a realistic 15/30 full-season projection? That’s a very interesting middle infielder worth drafting if the cost is post-pick 150.
Grant McCray (OF), San Francisco Giants
McCray was called up by the Giants in mid-August and the lefty has started for them almost every day since, including against southpaws. He rocketed through San Francisco’s system with 12 HR and 14 SB in 97 games split about evenly between Double-A and Triple-A in his first year in the high minors. One reason for the aggressive call may have been McCray’s excellent defense in center, a spot the Giants were spackling together by forcing Heliot Ramos there; Ramos cannot play CF.
McCray has a bit in common with Norby, except he actually hits the ball really hard (93.6 EV, 46% HH). The resemblance is a high barrel rate (13%) paired with an even higher whiff rate (40% K% and 21% SwStr). This combination stems from an uppercut swing that allows McCray to crush pitches middle-middle and middle-low in the zone but leaves him vulnerable everywhere else:
Even with the hole in his swing, McCray is reasonably selective (43% Z-Oswing). But the contact rates are truly abysmal: 71% zone contact and 59% overall. 59%! That would easily “lead” MLB, in a bad way. He’s especially bedeviled by breaking balls, batting below .170 against both sliders and curveballs.
Despite the myriad hit tool limitations, McCray has been productive with five HR and five SB through 99 PAs, while hitting just enough (.223) above the Mendoza line to be usable in fantasy. If we play the extrapolation game, that’s a 30/30 pace over 600 PA. Squint and you can see a discount Jazz Chisholm.
Verdict: We shouldn’t squint or extrapolate from this small of a sample. McCray needs to be rostered right now, but if he cannot improve the contact rate this profile sets up as a classic trap for next year. We’re concerned that McCray’s swing path is easily exploitable by MLB pitchers. The floor could be less than zero. In addition, the Giants will have Jung Hoo-Lee back healthy in 2025, and they paid him well to be their starting center fielder. At best, McCray is a late-round flier in draft and hold formats.
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